


don't leave me (you've taken my love)

by FinalDestiny13



Series: leave a light on (i'm coming home) [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, CDPR really said no happy endings, Character Death, Cyberpunk 2077 Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Female V (Cyberpunk 2077), Gen, Heavy Angst, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Johnny Silverhand is a Mess, Johnny learning to live without V, Mild Comfort, Road Trips, Sad Ending, Temperance Ending (Cyberunk 2077), bc v never got to leave nc like she wanted, depressed johnny silverhand, emotional johnny silverhand, he loves v and misses her so fucking much, he still uses he/him for himself despite occupying a woman's body, johnny and v are soulmates and NO you can't change my mind, johnny is in denial, johnny is merely it's caretaker until it falls apart naturally with wear and tear, longing johnny silverhand, mentioned Kerry Eurodyne, post temperance ending (cyberpunk 2077)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:29:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29916240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalDestiny13/pseuds/FinalDestiny13
Summary: Two enter Mikoshi, but only one comes back out.It's not V. Which had not been the plan, but turned out to be the end result anyway.What's six months to me compared to the years you'll get?Agony, he thinks a week later, in a body that was never his. Never will be.It's fuckingagony.===Johnny struggles to find the strength to keep going, to honor his Little Merc's last wishes.To live in a world without his better half.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: leave a light on (i'm coming home) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199894
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	don't leave me (you've taken my love)

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, may as well write something for the ending I originally got. Plus, I like keeping my discord fam on their toes. Keep us humble as I jump from angst, fluff, and smut continuously. :)
> 
> So I'm going to use my street kid Valkyrie for this though I tried to keep the descriptions to a minimum.
> 
> fic title from Queen's song _Love of My Life_. Series title is lyric from Bring Me The Horizon's _Doomed._
> 
> I've also made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2zPWCCgyKMspqHGbiWINqF?si=swPyKZmmQ2iHgaVJ0GU3bw) for this series. :) Enjoy! :)

Even with the windows open and hearing the ocean crash against the shore while the radio plays lowly around him, it's still too quiet.

Feels too empty.

No matter how much noise he has on, _surrounds_ himself with, the silence in his head is still _there,_ where V - where _**she**_ -

Johnny exhales heavily, borrowed eyes blinking as they burn from staring unseeingly at the steering wheel. Hands not his own but _are_ , clench twice. He notices that the flame nail polish is chipping, knows he should fix it maybe, but he can't. What was the _point_?

This body, _V's body_ , was his now. And as much as he's been telling himself the last few weeks that, since _Mikoshi_ , he doesn't believe it. Can't. He's just borrowing it for some time. Knows realistically that V isn't coming back, tells himself so any time the thought crosses his too empty mind, but still...

He wishes things had turned out different. Thinks he made a mistake coming back more often as of late because he just feels so...

_**Lost**_.

Johnny laughs, the sound broken and always startling him. Because while he hears his own voice when he speaks, he hears V's more, which makes sense considering. His heart - his borrowed one - hurts each time at the realization. As well as each time he looks in the mirror to see her face staring back at him. So sad. Broken. Half a shell of what once was. Maybe less.

(He shattered the mirror the second time he took a look, a day after it all, reality still not setting in fully just yet, silently reaching for her presence the way she would do for him almost subconsciously when the days had blended together and the urgency grew as the Relic took over more and more. He watched as V's expression turned into something angry and bitter but mostly grief stricken, tears rolling down her - his - face. The image cracks as a fist goes flying into it.

Johnny had panicked once he realized what he had done, hurrying to treat the bleeding knuckles, pulling a few shards of glass out of the skin. Tears still fell down his cheeks, crying in silent misery, realizing that the only one he would willingly seek comfort from wasn't here anymore.)

It's why he actively avoids reflective surfaces to help keep the hurt a little less sharp. The sharpness that once used to sit near her heart, back then, is gone, replaced by a new sort of hurt as he takes the driver's seat. A sharpness that cuts deep, never healing. Bleeding for _days_. Has yet to heal and most likely wouldn't as long as he occupied this body. Feels like his soul had been shredded when it had once felt complete. Had only truly felt complete with V's soul twined with his own so intimately, _so deeply_ , that near the end, before meeting Hanako, V had started saying _we_ and _us_ and _ours_. How Johnny did the same.

How _natural_ it was. How it just _fit_ so comfortably, neither ever bringing the matter up when the terms spilled past their lips. Slotted into their thinking.

But now there was no more _we_. No more _us_ or _ours_.

Just... _Johnny_.

Shaking hands clench again at the thought, coming up to press against borrowed eyes as they sting, this time with tears. He doesn't bother to hide his sobs, doesn't have the energy to. It's become routine at this point as he goes through the motions two weeks into his new reality. Never had he felt so lonely, so _despaired_ and _guilt ridden_ over losing someone he had grown to care about. Grown to truly _love_.

V, it seemed, was going to be the biggest thing he would ever regret. That he let her go. That he let her nudge him into taking her body. That he didn't put up much of a fight over it because of how she pleaded, _begged him_ , to take her place.

_"Please, Johnny,"_ she had sobbed, holding onto his arms tightly. Even if tears weren't a thing in cyberspace, the emotion was still there. Had become adept at reading her so easily. _"You'll have years. Get to live again. And what's that to my six months?"  
_

He didn't bother to hide his pain. Couldn't. Not from V. _"I promised,"_ he says, desperate to make her see that he was just as resistant to the idea of leaving her to this fate. That it should be _him_.

She had smiled so sweetly, so sadly, grip growing tighter. _"I know,"_ she replies softly. _"But I'm having you break this one. Please."_ Her hands slip down from his forearms to grab his hands, squeezing tight. She was shaking. Or was that him? _"Just do me a few favors when you get back, yeah? Take care of yourself. Go live. And-"_ V cut herself off, taking in a deep breath. A reflex. She smiles, a broken thing. _"Don't forget me, okay?"_

"I could _never_ forget you _,_ " Johnny rasps aloud in the car, voice thick with grief and mourning, hands scrubbing at the endless onslaught of tears. "I miss you so _fucking_ _**much**_."

The relic was aptly named. _  
_

_**Soulkiller**_.

Because it took half of him away. And now he has to continue on with this cursed gift he's been given, the rest of him dying slowly with each day that passes. Another day without his better half, his fucking _soulmate_ for all that he believed in the word now, beside him. Another reminder that the one he yearns most for is far beyond his reach. But he promised, and despite how most days he struggles to move and _function_ , Johnny is going to live up to her last wishes.

Try and make his Little Dreamer proud.

He owes it to V.

And...it's all he really has now.

* * *

The holo rings and rings and _rings_. Johnny never answers nor reads the texts that seem to buzz between calls. He's half tempted to toss the damn thing out but something stops him. Probably himself since he listens to the voicemails at least, guilt and grief an ever constant companion nowadays. Feelings that grow tenfold as he listens to Panam rage, shouting that she hates V for ignoring her calls and texts, voice cracking. That the Aldecaldos miss her, that she does. That everything they've done together has clearly meant nothing to the merc by giving Panam the sudden cold shoulder. Ends the voicemail by telling V to not bother calling back.

She texts the most.

There's one from the ripper doc. Vik. Asks how she's doing. That he has new parts in, knowing she likes to have the advantage on gigs with preem cyberware. He sounds sad but mostly worried and concerned. Tells her to take care and that if Silverhand is bothering her then to not hesitate taking those pills Misty gave her.

Misty leaves one as well, a reading. Her voice is full of sorrow, perhaps even knowing with what she says. That something big had happened. Life changing as V was torn in half by her decision.

(Johnny can't help but laugh at that. Hit the nail on the head, that one.) 

Johnny deletes those voicemails. Deletes the ones from Judy, Claire, and River as well, not bothering to listen to them. Same treatment for the one voicemail from Rogue surprisingly.

There's several from Kerry, each one steadily growing more and more worried at V's lack of response. How she seemed to vanish. Stopped answering his calls and texts when she had always been quick to respond. The latest voicemail was ten minutes of silence before Kerry finally said something.

_"...Johnny?"  
_

The holo had went flying across the abandoned hotel room he's holed himself up in the past few weeks. He doesn't listen to them anymore after that.

* * *

It's been four weeks. Nearly a month since he came out of Mikoshi, leaving a piece of himself behind in the depths of the Net as a consequence. But it's time he stopped just sitting and sulking. He could sulk on the road at least. Live like V had asked him to do. To not waste this wretched gift she ~~forced upon~~ handed him.

So...today's the day he starts to fulfill that favor. The few meager belongings he snagged from V's apartment that night when he returned, half aware of his surroundings but completely broken and numb, tossed into a duffel bag from his temporary roost. Clothes mostly, with his Malorian tucked inside alongside a couple of books he took from her place as well. He picks up his bag and leaves the room without a glance back, grabbing his SAMURAI jacket on the way out. It's still dark out, the early hours of the morning, but Johnny has one last thing he wishes to do. So he hops in to the truck that will become his new place to rest with his new life on the road, the _Little Mule_ , before starting the engine and driving.

It's a quick drive to get to the beach in Pacifica, the mostly empty streets a blessing. Another reminder that he's on his own again with no one to really rely on. Doesn't have the energy to truly want to.

They'd never understand the depth of his loss. Never know how you could know someone so wholly, so _completely_ , accepting of all their best and worst sides and _love_ them still.

Because that's what V's sharpness had been. Love.

_For him._

~~He didn't deserve it. Just like this chance.~~

Johnny sighs deeply, pulling the car up beneath the pier on the sand and turns the engine off. Gets out to sit on the hood, one boot on the grill of the truck and the other swinging idly, gazing blankly at the ocean as it crashes softly against the shore. Closes borrowed eyes after a few moments and listens.

It's still too quiet.

"Can you believe that I haven't had a smoke or drink?" he says quietly, breaking the silence. It's only this past week that's he's started speaking aloud, trying to fill the oppressing silence that follows him. Haunts him. "You'd probably tease me, ask what's wrong with me." He's startled by the huff of amusement that escapes. Yet another foreign thing to feel. To experience. "The urge is sort of there. A lingering sort of feel from my old days. But I don't wanna fuck up-"

_'What we have.'  
_

His breath hitches, shakes her- _his_ head. "Don't matter. It's easy to ignore that craving. Thanks to you."

He falls silent for a long time. Watches as the horizon slowly shifts from black to a mix of red, orange, and yellow. Finally breaks it after hours of nothing but the tide lapping against the shore. "Used to bring us here. Told me that when you were a little street rat, that you would just sit here all night just to watch the sun come up. Said that it's one of the most beautiful sights you've ever seen. 'Course I called bullshit, so your stubborn ass had to prove me wrong."

Johnny sighs, uncaring of yet another stream of tears falling from his optics slowly. He never knew that V could have held so many tears. He's only seen her cry three times in their time together. After her best choom's _ofrenda,_ head buried in her arms back in the sanctuary of her apartment, with sniffles escaping every so often, silently crying. At the oil fields, when he was genuinely open and honest with her. V crying on _his_ behalf, firm in her belief that he was the one who saved her life despite his denial. And the third being Mikoshi. Right before he went down the well, him and V gripping one another, neither wishing to let go, until Alt chimed in softly, that time was running out for a safe escape out of Arasaka once he returned.

He tries to summon that strength she had. To look forward no matter how bleak the future may be ahead, despite the pain and loss that had morphed her into the person she became. Had become.

....he fails.

He shifts, leaning back on his hands, the hood of the truck cold against the warmth of his hands. Fucking weird to not have a mechanical one anymore, honestly. "So we watched for hours. Managed to get me to tell ya some of the shit the band would get into back in the day. I had you laughin' so hard, you were wheezing." His mouth tugs into a smile. It doesn't fit right. Everything is so, so _wrong_. "I don't think you knew, but I missed that sunrise because of you. I was lookin' at something more amazing. Prettiest sight I've ever seen. You laughing so freely." He chuckles and it's a bitter thing. Still doesn't sound right either. He's tried and failed to replicate her laugh, just to hear it again.

"That's why I'm watching this one instead. First and last one before I hit the road. Leave Night City behind me forever," he whispers, the sun starting to peek over the horizon. "You're right though, V. It's beautiful." A pause. "But it's got nothing on you."

Johnny watches for a few more minutes before hopping down, pulling open the driver side door. He takes one last look at the sunrise, a boot in the car already, and shakes his head, blue-green locks falling into his eyes from the movement. "Wish I told you just what you really meant to me, Val. Never loved anyone as much I did you."

* * *

By the time the dark of night fades in the sky, Johnny's already past Night City's limits and halfway into the Badlands, _Little Mule_ roaring beneath his fingers. He makes one last stop at an empty gas station to fuel up, right before crossing the border. The new coat of pink nail polish glints beneath the warmth of the sun, thumbs typing against the screen of the holo which still buzzes with texts every hour. The calls had stopped three days before.

The most recent message is from Kerry, demanding he respond if he wasn't going to pick up the phone. _Johnny_. It's from twenty minutes ago.

_She's gone, isn't she?  
_

_**FUCKING ANSWER ME ASSHOLE** _

His mouth twitches, blue eyes blinking behind his aviators to clear the sting. He's too tired to cry, a bone deep weariness plaguing him in it's place. One that he vividly remembers that V woke up to in that landfill. Something that had never left her but was only making itself known to him _now_ because he had no more tears left to cry. Johnny sighs before tapping a response. It's the only one he'll send. He owes this to Kerry. Feels like he does anyway, taking something else from the man yet again. A cherished friend that helped pull him through a dark time.

Johnny hopes Kerry won't fall into old habits again.

_Take care of yourself, Ker. I never said it but I'm proud of you._

_See you in the next life, choom. I've got a few things to see to in Val's memory._

_-JS_

He hits send before he can second guess himself. The holo buzzes even as he drops it to the ground, keeps buzzing until the bottom of his boot crushes it and silences it once and for all. He peels away from the station, doesn't look back at the city he leaves behind him.

As far as the other people in the know are, how news has finally broken out that the heiress to the Arasaka had been murdered - Militech most likely as Arasaka's fumbling to stay afloat had been very hush hush from the public since Mikoshi thanks to Alt -, V and Johnny had died in their assault of the headquarters.

He wishes he did.

At least they'd be _together_. 

* * *

_Fuck. It's true then. Had a feeling._

_Johnny...drop by my place. I know we've got our issues but I know that this can't be easy either._

_You remember where I live, yeah? **[FAILED TO SEND]**_

_Johnny? **[FAILED TO SEND]**_

_YOU FUCK- DON'T DISAPPEAR ON ME AGAIN **[FAILED TO SEND]**_

_YOU CAN'T JUST DROP A BOMB LIKE THAT AND LEAVE. NOT LIKE THIS **[FAILED TO SEND]**_

_BUT WHO AM I KIDDING YOU'VE DONE IT ONCE BEFORE **[FAILED TO SEND]**_

_...I hope you can find peace, Johnny. Wherever that may be. I know she loved you. It was obvious to me anyway. **[FAILED TO SEND]**  
_

_See in the next life, choom. Make it a good one. **[FAILED TO SEND]**  
_

* * *

He drives for miles, hours, until he's struggling to stay awake. Only then does he pull over to the side of the road, scrambling into the back seat, car locked securely.

The sound of his breathing is the only thing that breaks the silence. He hates it. _Loathes_ it.

Lips part open and a sorrowful tone spills forth.

" _A thing of beauty, I know_

_Will never fade away._ "

* * *

Johnny travels from city to city, state to state. Never lingers too long nor does he make any real connections. He didn't plan on sticking around too long on each stop, restless and running from the silence that hounded him when he wasn't speaking or singing aloud to himself when the radio would cut out when out of signal range. Trouble, surprisingly, rarely found him and it was a thing he was grateful for. He was tired of fighting in general.

Tired of a lot of things but alas, his promise to live kept him going.

He figures he should see and do as much as he can. Recalls how V always wanted to leave Night City for good, to travel if possible. See the States if not the rest of the world. He'll do as much as he can for her. That way, when they see each other again, he can tell her all about the things he's seen, the sort of people he's met, the food he liked and hated. How using her pretty face had gotten him out of any trouble he _did_ run into, all without spilling blood. How he learned to walk in six inch stilettos just because she couldn't walk in _any_ sort of heel _**and**_ climbed a mountain with them just to flex even more. That he had gotten really bored one day and dyed her blue-green hair a different color just because she never had the chance or time to like she had often thought about.

It's the first time in three months he could look in the mirror and not immediately start tearing up, blue eyes peering at his _very_ bright pink hair. He catches his gaze, startled to see V smiling back at him. It doesn't look quite right but it's not the twisted thing it used to be either. Not as fake like it had felt.

Still wrong though because it's not V. Never will be no matter how he tries to recreate some of her mannerisms. A way to keep her alive somehow.

Doesn't work of course because Johnny can't have good things. Can't keep them long enough to truly treasure and appreciate them. Like he should have done in the beginning.

A lesson he's learned far too late.

* * *

The pain, the hurt, is still there, sharp as ever, but Johnny finds that it's becoming a little easier to ignore as the days go on, finding things to distract himself from focusing too much on it. Even so, he misses V with his entire being, still speaks aloud when no one else is around. It helps.

Especially when he can pretend that V can hear him.

* * *

On one stop, he purchases a notebook to jot down everything. He's seen and done a bit already and doesn't want to forget one detail. Just in case.

At his next stop, he buys three more notebooks for the journey ahead. Lately, his fingers itch to scrawl out lyrics of songs that he'll never play.

It's alright though. They're all meant for one person anyway.

* * *

Slowly but surely, his notebook collection grows. Pages upon pages full of details of the sights like the Grand Canyon or the World's Largest Rubber Band Ball, half assed sketches of things that caught his eye, or lyrics of songs never to be heard by anyone but him. Sometimes, he'll write about his dreams when he has them. More often than naught, he has nightmares due to his regrets. He prefers those though over total blackness.

Three of them in particular, all a dark shade of blue if not black, are filled with nothing but notes addressed directly to V. Some depressing as fuck, but most of them of Johnny recalling her little quirks from their time together. Listing things he loved about her. Things that irritated him. Bitching about that one time she dropped his gun into the _water_. **_On purpose_**.

Confessions of how much he loved her and that he regrets not telling her so just once at least. That if she were still here, had things turned out differently, the sort of dates he'd take her on, even the cheesy ones she had wistfully thought of once upon a time after watching an old film on the days she _had_ to rest and recover her energy.

Those pages usually had tear stains, causing the ink to bleed.

Before the year is up, half of a milk crate tucked into the trunk is full of his new hobby.

* * *

He stops keeping tracking of dates at some point. Didn't want to have a reminder of just how long he's been without his Dreamer.

But of course, _something_ has to bite him in the ass eventually. (He remembers telling V that her ass looked fine in everything. Remembers cackling as she threw a knife at him in embarrassment on reflex, only to fizz through him and stick in the wall with a loud thud. He's not ashamed to admit that he squeezes it every so often. Purposely buys jeans and shorts and dresses that he knows makes him look good.

After all, if V were here with him, he'd lavish her in such clothing. Constantly tell her how amazing she looked in anything she wore. That her years of being stealthy had given her a certain edge, a prowl, to her walk. One that still stuck even if he had ownership of the body now, kept in shape from all the exploring he did instead of the once constant stream of gigs for merc work she did.)

He stares, fingers digging into the scream sheet in some town in the middle of the country. It caught his attention at first glance because Kerry was on the cover, promoting a new album and tour with Us Cracks. But that's not what he ultimately focused on.

2082.

It's been five years.

* * *

He sits in the shower of the room he rented for the night and for the first time in a long while, he _weeps_. 

* * *

Johnny keeps moving. He considers leaving the States but ultimately decides it's too much effort getting a false ID since V technically didn't exist in the NUSA in the first place. (Who would have thought? His V, her _real_ identity, had been and still was one of the world's best kept secrets. And it'll stay that way as he takes that information to the grave, whenever and wherever that may be.)

Once he gets to the end so to speak, he just turns back around, backtracks his path as best he can.

He had nothing better to do. Plus, he was hoping something _new_ had cropped up in places, if only to add it to his ever growing entries.

* * *

At some point, halfway back across the country, Johnny just...stops. Finds a place left abandoned, intending to stay for a short time as he could only take sleeping in the truck for so long.

Only he never leaves.

He fixes up the place, making trips into the nearby town for supplies. Soon after, his things from the truck migrate inside when he finishes making it sturdy. Livable.

It's not much but it's enough for him.

* * *

A part of him feels disgusted at how fucking _domestic_ he's become, still in that house he found and fixed up six years after discovering it and living, mostly, off grid. Even has a dog now. A grey pit bull that had wondered into his yard one evening and just never left. Like him.

He named her Dreamer.

Johnny thinks, _knows_ , that V would hold this sort of thing over his head forever if she ever found out. Endlessly tease him about it.

He hopes to, one day, tell her himself. Dreams of it even.

Hmm...

V was a ~~wonderful~~ terrible influence on him clearly.

* * *

More time passes and the world continues to change around him. He watches as Dreamer's muzzle gets more gray, his face getting more wrinkles, subtle as they are. Valkyrie's natural hair color was black but that too is starting to go gray, Johnny having stopped dying it long ago. He could correct it, obviously, but tosses the thought away. He'd rather go when it's time. He's not happy of course, hasn't been since Mikoshi all those years - decades? - ago, but he's made something of his second chance.

Made a quiet life.

Lived like he had promised.

He likes to think that V would be proud of him.

(Plus, he thinks she would get a kick out of the fact that she, apparently, ages like fine wine.)

* * *

He buries Dreamer in the backyard, beneath the willow tree they would sit beneath for hours and hours, soaking in the sun some days. She died of old age.

She was a good companion. The best sort of company to help ease the ache that's never left him.

But the ache returns tenfold with her passing too, Johnny weeping silently over the loss of yet another friend. He wipes his nose before heading inside.

* * *

By the end of the day, he's packed a few clothes and hops in his car and just drives.

The place he'd lived in blazes brightly in the night behind him.

(The notebooks dedicated to V as well as his Malorian are buried next to Dreamer's grave. Right beneath the _Johnny + V_ he carved into the tree.)

* * *

He makes only necessary stops like food and gas. Notes that things have changed quite a bit when he wasn't looking. But he doesn't linger long. He has one last destination in mind.

* * *

Night City hasn't changed too much despite the past thirty years since he left it. Militech took Arasaka's spot in the hellscape and yet everything stayed the same. He's not surprised honestly. This place had been condemned the moment corpo's took control. Nothing could really save it now. The nuke he had set back in 2023 proved it.

...Fuck.

That was almost ninety years ago now. 

The soul deep weariness presses on borrowed bones even more at the realization. A feeling that has been a constant companion alongside that sharpness in his heart. It's bled all these years still, only slightly eased by Dreamer's company. A forever festering wound that never healed properly, just temporarily scabbed over.

Being back here has ripped it off again, brought his old friend grief back, made fresher by the loss of his canine weeks ago.

Johnny sighs, wiping the tears from his eyes and continues driving.

* * *

It's like that day he left NC, only this time he's perched on the railing of the abandoned beach house in Pacifica, watching the sunset, two fresh corpses prone on the sand not far from him, believing they could take advantage of _an old hag_.

While strange to use the Mantis Blades let alone kill someone again, Johnny had dealt with them easily, his old mindset and awareness of just how lawless the city was something he never forgot. He's awfully glad he's kept himself fit all this time, even if he never thought he would land back here again.

But it seems fitting.

That he returns near the end to the place where it all began, has been an occupant of this body long enough that he can tell that it's starting to fall apart despite the great care he's treated it with. It was only a matter of time, really.

Death comes for all eventually, no matter how much humanity strives for immortality. Arasaka is proof of it.

The sun dips below the horizon as waves crash against the shore, the faint sound of music playing from a radio not far off from where he is. The wind blows, makes the awful stench of the city mixed with the ocean more potent than it already is. Johnny's missed it in a weird way. He smiles, taking the visual in one last time.

"See you soon, doll," he says before walking inside the beach house.  
  


* * *

  
It's been years since he's dealt with tech like this, can tell it's far more upgraded than what he's used back in the day. Thankfully, the process seems much the same regardless, remembers watching V hook in occasionally. Remembers the things she taught him as he went alongside her because of their shared brain, talking at him softly and nonjudgmental because she noticed his fear that he couldn't hide no matter how much he tried.

Johnny had good reason to fear going into the Net. Mikoshi just made it _worse._

His exhale is just as shaky as his hands are as he sits on the netrunner's chair, cord in hand and eyes on the screen flashing at him that the connection was secure. It's been like that the past ten minutes.

Johnny closes his eyes and nods, steeling himself even though he's still shaking, still terrified. But this was better than dying on his own, somewhere quiet. It's no blaze of glory either but he doesn't want to go out any other way. Wants to chance getting lost in the Net and maybe, _hopefully_ , find V again.

Even if the chances of that are slim to none. And if not, then he could always ask Alt to finally, _finally_ end him once he locates her. He's tired.

_Exhausted_.

Another deep breath and he plugs in as he lays down and closes his eyes, his last thoughts in the waking world being of his Darling V.

As it had always been.

**Author's Note:**

> I SWEAR THE SERIES IS GOING TO HAVE A BETTER ENDING
> 
> In case you're wondering, Johnny lives 30 years after V. His temporary vessel was nearing 60. Which means that Johnny, to the world if he were still living before [waves at CP2077 + this fic], would be 118 by now. But since he was still _technically_ 34 mentally when Soulkiller happened + landing in V's head, he's spiritually close to about 88 in this. 
> 
> If my math is right anyway.
> 
> See you in Part 2! :)
> 
> yell at me on [tumblr](https://iwantedtobeadored.tumblr.com/)


End file.
